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And put a stop to all this matter—

Why don’t you rouse, I say, in season,

And cut the wicked wizard’s weasand?

’Tis true, alas! I’m loth to say,

That you forsake the good old way,

And tread a path so very odd,

So unlike that your fathers trod.

With what delight the poet fancies

He sees their worships plague old Francis;[60]

While he, sad wight, wo-worn and pale,

Is dragg’d about from jail to jail!

For he was such a stubborn dragon,

He would not down and worship Dagon;

That is to say, would not acknowledge

Supremacy of your great college!

And what was worse, if worse could be,

And raised their ire to such degree,

That they to Tyburn swore they’d cart him;

He cured folks “non secundum artem.”

His patients saved, from mere compassion,

Though killing was the most in fashion!

Then well your father’s ire might burn as

Hot as the famed Chaldean furnace!

Thus, when the heretic Waldenses,

With their co-working Albigenses,

Found, what they thought they might rely on,

A nearer way to go to Zion,

Those saints who trod the beaten path,